February 22, 2010

Inconsolable Differences

Many Democrats now pugnaciously assert that, no matter what voters think, the Left is going to pass ObamaCare anyway... and you'll jolly well like it, see!

Under this scenario, the House will simply pass the Senate version. Then, by abusing a procedure that is little understood (even by members of Congress) -- and never intended to pass controversial legislation under the radar anyway -- they will "fix" (that is, rewrite) every faint nod towards fiscal responsibility that snuck its way into the bill, turning it into another corrupt, trillion-dollar boondoggle.

Using this technique, called "reconciliation," no fillibuster is allowed; the fixes can be enacted with a simple majority in House and Senate.

The only fly in the pudding is that the House Democratic caucus hasn't the votes. What with retirements and untimely deaths, they lose four or five votes right off the bat. Also subtract the lone Republican who voted for it last time, Rep. Anh "Joseph" Quang Cao (LA, As yet unrated); he now says he won't vote for it ever again. That brings the 220-vote majority down to a 214- or 215-vote minority.

Finally, a group of 64 Democrats (plus 176 Republicans, but they're irrelevant here), led by Rep. Stupak, voted to ban any kind of federal funding of abortions. Alack and woe are they, full federal funding for abortions is one of the late (and Catholic) Teddy Kennedy's crowning achievements, and Democratic senators aren't about to knock the rug off the feet of that legislative memorial to the Lion of the Senate. If even 10% of those Stupakers meant what they said, that means the bill falls short of passage by 10 or 11 votes.

So they appear to be Stupaked -- a portmanteau word I just created by combining "stupified" and "stuck" in a particle accelerator. Thus, now do I offer what may be the perfect end run around the new obstacle, a House of Representatives that can't find its way to 218 votes. To complement the reconciliation process, we now offer the irreconciliation process.

All the Democrats need do is enact a House rule change: Henceforth -- until January 2011 -- a majority of 38% will be sufficient to enact any controversial legislation designed to remove and replace any program supported by Republicans or created by George W. Bush. That is, when trying to undo Republican ravages against the Vision, 161 representatives will, by rule, constitute a majority of the full 435.

It's pointless to argue; it just is. Do the math, remembering to take the traditional five-finger discount for Democrats.

The time for bourgeois voting is over; we need action, action, action!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, February 22, 2010, at the time of 9:32 PM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: Sarattus

I like the site but you need more attentive editing (as do we all): 1. there is no such word as "snuck," "sneaked" is the proper form; 2."they've lose four or five votes..." please let this be an unfortunate typo. I know correcting grammer is a bore but so is sloppy English.

The above hissed in response by: Sarattus at February 22, 2010 9:43 PM

Hm. You seem to be under the impression that we have an editorial staff which goes over each piece with a magnifying comb. "They've lose" is simply an artifact of rewriting; it was originally "they've lost," but it wasn't fully converted to the present tense.

As to snuck, I'm sorry, gentle reader, but it's you who are in error. I direct your attention to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage, which documents use of the word "snuck" as the past or past participle of sneak, in literary, edited prose, dating back to Ring Lardner in 1916. It began as dialect in dialog, but it had already become more or less standard in non-fiction and narration before I was born -- and I'm older than you realize!

See pp. 854-5 of the 1989 edition, or just look it up in a more contemporary one.

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